dedicated to DATA: digitally assisted text analysis

...the broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the Moon, whose Orb
Through Optic Glass the Tuscan Artist views
At Ev’ning from the top of Fesole,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new Lands,
Rivers or Mountains in her spotty Globe.
(Paradise Lost, 1. 286-91)

The are somewhere in the neighbourhood of five million incompletely transcribed words in the rougly two billion words of English books before 1700 transcribed by the Text Creation Partnership. Depending on how you look at it, that is either a lot or not very much at all. Less than half a percent of words are...